British Speed Climbing Championships (BSCC) Sheffield 2014

The night before the competition we found out that it didn’t start until 5 so we didn’t have to get up so early. When we did get up we had breakfast in the hotel and went down to watch the paraclimbing final. It was really inspirational to see them climb the routes that I had in the lead championship the day before.

The seniors still had to climb their final routes before the speed climbing started. They were amazing and managed to get so high on the hardest routes. William Bosi nearly topped the hardest route in the whole of the weekend!

After the seniors had climbed the speed climbing started. I did my practise run but wasn’t timed and I managed to hit the buzzer because it was 40cm lower than the speed climb pad in Ratho which I had lots of difficulty with in the Scottish Speed Climbing Championship. Even so, on my first timed run I missed the buzzer! After this I felt annoyed with myself as I had only one more attempt to register a time. On my second timed run I managed to register a time of 22.91 (5 milliseconds off my PB) which put me in second place and through to the semis.

In the semis I was up against Pippa and had a good time of 20.44 which put me through to the final. Flo had also qualified for the final competing against Abigail. Flo had a better time than me throughout the competition so it was going to be close in the final.

There was a break before the final so I warmed up. I loosened up my arms more than usual because they were going to have to move quickly if I was going to have a chance of beating Flo.

I was climbing on the left hand side for the final. I felt excited and knew it wouldn’t take long! There is nothing much to say other than it was very close. I looked at Flo when I hit the buzzer and saw her hit the buzzer after me. When I came down the commentator announced that I was the new British Junior Speed Climbing Champion with a time of 16.90 sec. I was so pleased that my personal best had gone from 22.87 to 16.90 without any training on a speed climbing wall.

As a prize I got a months free pass to Awesome Walls and multi-pack of quickdraws and carabiners.

I really enjoyed the weekend it was a great, well organised competition. It was also awesome to see my first paraclimbing competition. The routes in the leading competition were interesting but the girls C routes weren’t really hard enough.